336 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
traveller wishes to avoid this dietary, he must have his own 
cook with him on the journey. In this capacity there attended 
us a Japanese, whose name was Senkiti-San, but who was 
commonly called by his companions Kok-San (Mr. Cook). He 
had learned European (French) cooking at Yokohama, and 
during the journey devoted himself with so great zeal to his 
calling, that even in the deserts at the foot of Asamayama he 
gave himself no rest until he could offer us a dinner of five 
dishes, consisting of chicken soup, fowl omelette, fowl-beefsteak, 
fowl fricass4, and omelette aux confitures, all thus consisting only 
of fowls and hens’ eggs, cooked in different ways. 
For some years back lucifer matches have been an article of 
necessity in Japan, and it was pleasing to us Swedes to observe 
that the Swedish matches have here a distinct preference over 
those of other countries. In nearly every little shop, even in the. 
interior of the country, are to be seen the well-known boxes with 
the inscription '' Sakerhets tandstickor utan svafvel och fosfor.” 
But if we examine the boxes more carefully, we find upon many 
of them, along with the magic sentence unintelligible to 
the Japanese, an inscrij)tion indicating that they have been 
made by some Japanese manufacturer. On other boxes this is 
completely wanting, but the falsification is shown by an un¬ 
fortunate error in the inscription. It thus appears that the 
Swedish matches are not only introduced into Japan on a large 
scale, but are also counterfeited, being made with the Swedish 
inscription on the box and with a cover resembling that used at 
home. The imitation, however, is not nearly so good as the 
original, and my Japanese servant bade me therefore, when I 
purchased a box of matches, observe carefully that I got one 
of the right (Swedish) sort. 
Photography also has spread so rapidly in the country that at 
many places in small towns and villages in the interior Japanese 
photographers are to be met with who put out of their hands by 
no means bad work. The Japanese appear to have a great 
